Sports, Culture and Other Stuff

Main menu

Post navigation

Do They Know?

Someone posted a comment in response to a line in this post on frats the other day. The line was “Whatever American Progressivism was in the past, it is now a nihilistic death cult.” The comment was:

I don’t disagree, but could you explain that a bit more? Are progressives even aware of this? I recognize the kind of progressive you describe. They are very helpful. And they leverage their helpfulness in order to impose their ideology, and to control the organization of which they are a part. Death in what sense? How are they not aware of their own nihilism?

Instead of addressing it in the comments, I thought it was a good topic to explore in a full blog post. In fact, I could write a book on it and maybe I am.

There are two issues at work here. One is the self-awareness, or the lack of self-awareness, we see with Progressives. We’re all used to seeing Progs preach against something they are doing to excess. Google “the opposite rule of liberalism” and see what comes up. The other issue is about agency. These tactics we see them employ to corrupt public institutions suggests a level of plotting and scheming that strains credulity. On the other hand, the pattern suggests agency. They plan their work and work their plan.

The first part is probably the easiest one. People in a cult are not sitting around saying to one another, “This is a great cult. I’m really enjoying my time as a cult member.” Similarly, no one sits down one day and says, “I think I want to join a cult.” People in a cult think the beliefs and rules of their cult are perfectly logical and rational. They provide an explanation and framework for understanding the world. People on the outside, however, see the rules and beliefs of a cult as weirdly irrational and maybe even dangerous.

The other thing about people in cults is they join from self-loathing. They hate themselves and seek to swap their hated individual identity with that of the group. It’s why they will savagely defend their group like a mother defending their young. It’s self-defense. The group is them and they are the group. Therefore, any criticism of the group, or the beliefs of the group, is the same as an attack on the member. It is why they consider criticism the same as violence. From their point of view, it is violence, violence against their identity.

As a result, they lack self-awareness. I once had a lefty friend tell me he moved to Arlington Mass for the diversity. Arlington may not be Reykjavik, but it is not diverse. That did not matter. He and his coreligionists talk about diversity the same way vegans always talk about their diet. It’s about signalling. Their revealed preferences are in direct contradiction to the chants, but that’s not their focus. Their identity is defined by their membership in the group that celebrates diversity, not about their personal decisions.

This natural unwillingness to examine their own lives is why they are are always seeking to shift the focus of all debates away from their group or their preferences and onto someone else. For example, my moonbat friend’s reaction, when I started laughing at his claims about Arlington, were met with an accusation. He accused me of being narrow minded with regards to what constitutes diversity. He was shifting the focus from him and his thing onto me. This is instinct, not agency. The Prog fears self examination.

The Progressive success at infiltrating and destroying institutions is a tougher nut to crack. The war on frats is really a proxy for the war on white men. The people who originally struck the financial deals with the frats were probably being practical. It’s later that Progs saw control of the purse strings as a tool they could use in their war on the males. Even so, how is it that the Progs have suddenly declared the white man an enemy of the faith? It does feel like it just happened, all of a sudden, as if it was planned.

The most likely answer is serendipity, which is why the Left is so successful. Progs seek safety in numbers. It’s why they will be very aggressive when they have a numerical advantage, but they will be docile and compliant when outnumbered. We all have Prog friends, who are great one on one, but they turn into something else when they are with their coreligionists. In all probability, their desire for safety is what leads them to focus on getting fellow Progs into the organization until they hit critical mass and take over.

The great puzzle of the Progressive epoch is that they have never been more than 20% of the white population, but they have dominated American life since the Civil War. Alawites are just 12% of the Syrian population, yet they run the country. An organized and dedicated minority can punch well above its weight, if the majority is disorganized or unwilling to enforce its majority privileges. For this to happen for five generations speaks the power of fanaticism when expressed as a group behavioral trait.

I think a lot of what drives liberal behavior is hindbrain reactionary response rather than thoughtful cognitive analysis. This is because they have a subconscious understanding of their own ineptness at basic survival functioning. Their need of government is existential, not discretionary. This is also why they treat every criticism as a death threat. The real irony of all this is that they are pushing very hard (and fast) toward a final battle, which they delude themselves into believing they will win because they effectively control the public debate. In this sense, they are their own worst enemy.

Of course, insinuating yourself in media and academia can make you seem much more in numbers or influence than in reality.
If people fall for it, that is reality.

You would think that celebrities ruled the country by the way they are reported on and quoted. Drudge and Breitbart are the worse for right leaning websites. I think they need them as much as the famous idiots need the exposure. Kathy Griffin will do well by the latest outrage but I am digressing.

I despise progressives both personally and their progressive program. I would like to see the justice system start a systematic war against them both legally and extra-legally. Make them pay a heavy price. Particularly those DC congressional staffers who have polluted the bureaucracy. I want to see them suffer greatly.

” I would like to see the justice system start a systematic war against them both legally and extra-legally.”

So, the cure for statism is statism? They *ARE* the government, including the justice system. The establishment won’t go after itself – any solution will have to come from outside the system, and generally speaking, the citizenry really isn’t keen on doing that.

Based on all of the montages I’ve seen of news-readers from different organizations repeating the exact same talking point about the same subject on the same day, I believe that something like jornolist still exists. It is just better hidden and the members are more carefully vetted. Maybe just trusted editors, producers, and writers have direct access. The talking heads and beat reporters don’t see the feed. So more of a cell structure than the USENET-like model they used before.

I think z is right, but journolist was real. This means that there is a conspiratorial aspect to what they do as well as the kind of behavioral explanation he puts forward. There are both conscious and unconscious factors at play. I think we have a tendency to play up the unconscious ones in preference to the other because we realize that as the degree of agency rises, so does the level of conscious evil that is being committed, and we don’t like to think of our fellows in devilish terms, especially when we don’t claim to believe in the… Read more »

I have to admit that the “Donna Brazille passing debate questions to Hillary” incident really unnerved me. The incident during the Obama-Romney debate when Candy Crowley attacked Romney directly didn’t quite have the same effect. While my read on Obama’s body language during the lead up and during Crowley’s intervention told me that he knew it was coming and had rehearsed for it, there was no documentary evidence. But after Brazille, we knew that there was collusion. I cannot watch an MSM news show or panel without now assuming that everything everyone says is fake.

There all nuts but the last one about Trump supporters not believing in the Constitution is a hoot. There’s a document that was rendered irrelevant decades ago by early commie progs. They may pay lip service to it to say whatever they want it to mean, but that’s it.

the progs weren’t a burden on the nation until the 1990’s when they metastasized. now they have revealed their true nature and the rest of the country is recoiling from them. they are provoking a violent counter-response. all of the prog movers and shakers are known (worlwide), all will be slain. then a golden age begins the cycle anew.

This is true, I think. I go back and see speeches by Bill Clinton talking about crime or illegal immigration and I think, “Christ, this has nothing to do with politics. It’s just the most basic common sense to know you need law and order for a society to function, even a progressive one.” The democratic party understood this until recently. You can still occasionally find the lone, white sane democrat floating around there (i.e. Jim Webb), but they’ve all but been run out on a rail. Trump reminds me of Giuliani in this way: he’s a New Yorker viscerally… Read more »

Oh no, they were always a burden, and worse. The Progs struck 1913 twice, 1919 three times, and in 1933 that beanstalk took off for Utopia. They are not plowing new ground, they are just hanging on for the ride.

I think I realized how terrifying these people were one day when looking at a post from my progressive professor on his facebook wall shortly after the Charleston Massacre. There was an image of the Stars and Bars and underneath the Confederate Flag he had written “Take this flag down. NOW!!!” All the other progs thought this was a brave and principled stand, and the exclamation points were meant to signal enthusiasm. All I could think, though, was that anyone who would say “Do this” or “Do that” followed by “NOW!!!” is unhinged, no matter how noble they think their… Read more »

I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that most ordinary people want to get on with enjoying their lives doing things they like and spending time with friends and family, and aren’t interested in plotting takeovers, politics, virtue-signalling, and busy-bodying. The minority that take it seriously therefore get to rule, until the majority has had enough of them.

There you have it: couldn’t agree more! Closing in on 71, my interest in “great issues” pales alongside the pleasure of motivating my one and a half year old grandson to memorize the sounds made by the various animals in his picture book about the farm.

That does sound like more fun than dwelling on the nastiness of worldly collectivism. Just had this thought: If grandson can memorize the sounds of a dozen animals, maybe he’s ready, or will soon be ready, to memorize the sounds assigned to the 26 characters of our alphabet. I bet he’d learn to recite it backwards pretty quick, too, if given a nudge in that direction. Many adults would stuggle to do this sober, much less while standing on one foot for a cop who has pulled them over. But if you can’t do it, how well do you really… Read more »

The reason Progs are a minority than the rest is that the majority of us just want to work and then be left alone (Aha! “Left alone!) to pursue our own happiness. But progs are lazy, too many have been born into money, and have nothing better to do that create mischief in the so-called name of saving the world from itself. The old saw that idle hands is the devils’ workshop is true in their case. They are backseat drivers, armchair philanthropists, and children screaming from the peanut gallery. The rest of us just want to live and get… Read more »

“An organized and dedicated minority can punch well above its weight, if the majority is disorganized or unwilling to enforce its majority privileges. For this to happen for five generations speaks the power of fanaticism when expressed as a group behavioral trait.”

Part of Progs’ success comes from their physiques — specifically, leather asses. The ability to sit through meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting… when everyone else has long since gone home, they’re still beavering away on some committee. Being unemployed, or underemployed in bullshit jobs like academia, Progs always have loads of free time, and they’re willing to use all of it to get what they want. We lose, because we have jobs and lives.

They’re a nihilistic death cult because the main sacraments of their religion are things like: – drug use – abortion – tribalism (or, anti-nationalism, if you prefer) – communism That’s how you wind up with “liberal” women at Berkeley wearing burquas around campus. Two sides of the same death cult coin. They’re not mad at Kathy Griffin, for example, because she did something wrong. They’re mad at Kathy Griffin because she took the death cult ceremony into the public eye. She now claims she is being “bullied” by the Trump family. It’s no longer about what she did. It’s about… Read more »

Whether you generally agree with him or not, I think Voxday has a very good point in regards to Christianity being part of the wests “secret sauce”. The pendulum swings from the 2 sides of human nature, the logos and pathos. In western civilization Christianity has historically supplied a frame word that generally limited the extremity of the fluctuations between the 2 faces of human nature. Even for those who do not see themselves as Christians yet are part of western Christian society they are effectively bounded due to the larger cultural norms generated by said society. As the west… Read more »

Boston, having always been the hothouse of progressiveism, looks to have revealed the cult’s true end game. The formerly ethnic neighborhoods are now mostly exclusively white and wealthy. Even Roxbury is being gentrified between stray bullets. Funny that your friend celebrated diversity in Arlington, safely across the river from the black ghetto of West Medford. Too much vibrancy I guess. W. Medford now, according to the boston globe, is the new hipster utopia for those that cannot afford Arlington. They even hauled out the old nickname of “the ‘ville.” No one in the layers of editorial oversight bother to research… Read more »

they have dominated American life since the Civil War Longer. They have dominated American life since the founding. America was founded by dissenters: by Baptists, Quakers, and Puritans. Have you ever thought about the agitation for independence? The Stamp Act was a trivial imposition on liberty compared to what we meekly accept routinely today. Has the TSA fondled your balls recently? Did you fuss? You are more sane than most, so you notice the 20% who are most in the vanguard of the American way of thought, which is individualist and egalitarian in the extreme. But the remaining 80% have… Read more »

Puritans were not individualistic. In fact, the extreme opposite is true. Progs inherited from Puritans the concept of collective sin. It’s why they are obsessed with rooting out dissenters and heretics.

Objectively, the concept of collective sin is not entirely wrong. The more corrupt the individuals of a nation, the more likely the nation-state is to fail. It’s about critical masses and collective weight of the lies/thefts/etc that ripple through society. One person trying to live virtuously will have a tough time in corrupt society.

That said, Purtians are particular culture that’s sort of reforming in the modern day in certain neighborhoods. I don’t care for them myself either. It’s all about superficial values, not real ones

Puritans get a pretty bad wrap on the new right, but most of their truly crazy behavior was a combination of brutal Indian wars and the fallout thereof. Their relative deviation from the other Protestants is overblown as is their propensity for collectivism and leveling. Most of the denominations coming out of the region were fairly moderate and even the commie varieties were usually more interested in isolating themselves than pushing for political power eg. Hutterites. By in early 19th century Puritan political power was mostly gone, though you can certainly talk about antecedent movements. Catholics and Jews have had… Read more »

Puritans were obsessed with rooting out “the self.” Of course, to do that, they had to obsessively, neurotically monitor their own selves…. hence, collective guilt — if everyone has a beam in their eyes, might as well go crazy trying to remove the speck in their neighbors’.

Zman says; “…..It’s why they will savagely defend their group like a mother defending their young. It’s self-defense. The group is them and they are the group. Therefore, any criticism of the group, or the beliefs of the group, is the same as an attack on the member. …. As a result, they lack self-awareness……” IMHO, they are totally self aware and the vehemence and irrationality with which they defend (and if given the chance, impose) their world view upon all results from someone, especially someone outside of their “religion,” pointing out a very soft, sensitive spot not only in… Read more »

Its not their religion they ARE the religion. They have “killed God” and now see themselves as god whether they realize it or not. Anyone questioning God’s actions is a heretic by default and little more then an ant to be stepped on hence even a criticism is a form of violence to them. When you Are God the only morals or ethics that matter are what you decree and as such any internal inconsistencies are irrelevant.

‘The people who originally struck the financial deals with the frats were probably being practical. It’s later that Progs saw control of the purse strings as a tool they could use in their war on the males.’

And so too it will be when they achieve Single Payer healthcare…
They will seek to modify behaviors, activities, beliefs all in the name of ‘healthcare’

In the UK, we have an organisation that trains the Progressives and has infiltrated all public sector bodies. It’s called Common Purpose and this is one website that exposes them and their methods: http://www.cpexposed.com/

This discussion about whether the Progs are opportunist or operate a conspiracy is an interesting parallel to the eight-year running debate on the brilliant Belmont Club site that it seems some of you-all read. It went, Pres. Obama: Incompetent or Malevolent_?

IIRC, the consensus was _both_. “Why not embrace the healing power of ‘And’_?”, as a number of thought leaders quipped.

“Arlington may not be Reykjavik…” Iceland is more “diverse” than you might think, thanks to the Afro-American servicemen who passed through there and the females who didn’t care what subspecies they strapped onto.

The progs are supreme egotists. They demand and expect to be praised for ever more extreme acts of adherance to their cult and wallow in the glow of their virtue signalling which rubs up their ego all the more. It’s addictive for them. Even for the ones who see Venezuela’s situation coming. What really hits them is the anti-cult shock treatment of Trump. They rationalise their deranged behaviour, lash out, whimper, beg for it to stop and violently refuse to allow any reality check. Case in point – Kathy Griffin. She actually sees herself is a victim ! She is… Read more »

The key to the success of progressives is their control of media. They gravitate toward organs of propaganda, whether in the arts, sports, fashion, entertainment, or journalism. The owners of those media companies are almost all progressive. That is the reality and it has been this way for most of the 20th century. There have been exceptions, but they have been few. We are fighting a Media Class.

It’s good to find a principled liberal just to remember that they do exist. Weinstein is a very impressive guy, especially since he came out of Evergreen. The penny has truly dropped for him and listening to him is fascinating. He is describing so much we have known for some time.

Progressives need to be physically removed from society. If it means rounding them up and stuffing in them in cattle cars to a concentration camp, so be it. Seize their assets and remove from society. Then deal with the elite statist on the right.

Always thought Arlington was a place for older white libs to move when they got tired of the Cambridge scene. Not familiar with that side of the river except to watch the fireworks on the 4th.

Have to agree that group seems to be very much self-loathing. They get behind PC like they’re doing big things. Now it looks like they might be consumed by the very beast they created, e.g. Evergreen State University 🙂

Arlington was a normal town until rent control ended in Cambridge. Then a flood of Cambridge people poured in. There was also the flood of money into the universities that sent housing prices in those towns skyrocketing. A friend bought a house in Arlington that double in value in five years.

No, the Progs do not know. They will be destroyed, and their legacy will be resigned to the ashbin of history. Fate is inexorable. The obvious response to this is, “Where do we start?” We, the Deplorables, outnumber the Progs by a wide margin. We are not yet organized, and we do not yet control any social institutions. But we denied the Progs a Hillary-Presidency, even if President Trump is not fully one-of-us. The Progs have been successful in their “long-march” through America’s liberal institutions. But in the process of their takeover, they diminished and negated the power and influence… Read more »